Norwood poised to return to ATL City Council
The two-time ATL mayoral hopeful is running unopposed for a Buckhead-area city council seat
There are lots of uncertainties surrounding the upcoming citywide elections in Atlanta. But with less than one week until voters head to the polls, there is one thing that appears to be certain: a two-time runner up for Mayor of Atlanta is set to return to the city council.
Mary Norwood has become a household name in Atlanta politics, having narrowly lost elections for mayor in 2009 and again in 2017. Her career in city government goes back two decades: she was first elected to an at-large city council post in 2001. She would serve on the council for eight years before running for mayor in 2009.
Norwood was seen as the heavy favorite to win the election. If elected, she would have become the city’s first white mayor in 40 years. Many people were surprised when she failed to win the general election outright: she took 46% of the vote, just a few percentage points shy of the 50% threshold needed to avoid a runoff election.
The second place finisher — and Norwood’s opponent in the runoff — was a young State Senator named Kasim Reed. Seen as a rising star in state politics, Reed waged what many described as an uphill battle against Councilwoman Norwood.
The runoff election was very bitter. Reed accused Norwood of being an ineffective member of the city council, highlighting the fact that she had never spearheaded any major legislation or chaired any committees. Her critics also accused her of campaigning in a “post-racial Atlanta.”
Norwood attempted to make an issue out of Reed’s late property tax payments.
“An Atlanta Journal-Constitution review of six years' worth of Reed's taxes found Fulton County penalized him $837.41 for three late payments. A company that Reed is a minority holder in has been penalized about $3,500 for late payments.”
At a time when the city was still dealing with the aftermath of the great recession, Norwood suggested that Reed’s failure to pay his property taxes show that he should not be trusted to handle the city’s finances.
The December 2009 runoff election was so close that it was not called by any news outlet for several weeks. Initial tabulations had Reed leading Norwood by around 700 votes, well within recount territory.
Reed declared victory and began forming a transition team, while Norwood called for a recount of the razor-thin contest. After the recount reaffirmed a Reed victory, Norwood formally conceded and Reed took office in January 2010.
Norwood remained active in city politics after her narrow defeat. She again ran for an at-large city council post in 2013. She narrowly won the general election, ousting the incumbent councilman who succeeded her following her defeat in the 2009 race for mayor.
Norwood ran for mayor again in 2017. The race saw similar dynamics as the 2009 election: Norwood was perceived as the frontrunner and faced a Black candidate — Councilwoman Keisha Lance Bottoms — in the runoff election.
Norwood’s critics leaned heavily on her political affiliation in the 2017 election. A self-described independent, Democrats attempted to portray her as a Republican masquerading as an independent.
One advertisement that was funded by the Democratic Party of Georgia claimed that Norwood had participated in a dozen Republican primaries and was once a delegate to the Republican National Convention. The narrator then grimly asked: “Should the next Mayor of Atlanta be from the party of Trump?”
Much like 2009, the 2017 runoff proved to be another nail-biter in the racially divided city. Bottoms led Norwood in the initial count by fewer than 800 votes. She declared victory and began assembling her administration, while Norwood asked for a recount that would once again show a narrow loss. She decided not to contest the results and conceded a few days before Bottoms was set to take office.
Since her 2017 defeat, Norwood has become active with community groups in Buckhead, an upscale community in north Atlanta. In 2019, she became the chair of the Buckhead Council of Neighborhoods, an influential community group that advocates on behalf of businesses and residents in Buckhead.
She raised eyebrows following the 2020 election after she signed onto one of the Trump campaign’s lawsuits seeking to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in Georgia, writing in a sworn affidavit that her supporters found election irregularities in both of her unsuccessful campaigns for mayor. The lawsuit was dismissed.
So why is Norwood's return to the city council a certainty? Simply put, it’s because she is running unopposed in next week’s election for District 8.
First-term City Councilman J.P. Matzigkeit announced earlier this year that he would not seek re-election, creating an open race in a district that includes the western portion of Buckhead. Norwood was the only candidate that filed to run for the open seat.
Norwood’s campaign website says that public safety one of the biggest reasons why she is running. Some voters in Buckhead have grown frustrated with the increase in violent crime and are now floating the idea of breaking away from the city of Atlanta so they can form their own police department to help fight crime. “We must treat violent crime as a crisis,” Norwood says. “We must protect our neighborhoods, families and businesses with more police officers on the street, a recruitment plan that brings in the best and the brightest, and improve morale with new APD [Atlanta Police Department] leadership.”
She also said that she plans to address city services, road repairs and neighborhood zoning when she returns to city hall: “Our city must improve city services and fix our streets, roads and sidewalks. Zoning and development codes must be written and enforced so that our neighborhoods and quality of life are protected, which includes protections for our tree canopy. Atlanta is known as a City in a Forest, and our greenspace contributes to our health and well-being.”
One thing to keep an eye on is her relationship with the new Mayor. She has not publicly endorsed any candidate, but she has served alongside Felicia Moore on the city council for many years. It’s hard to imagining her having a great working relationship with Kasim Reed — the man who dashed her mayoral hopes not once, but twice.
The bottom line: expect a lot of drama in city hall when the new councilmembers and the new mayor take office.